Rescue the rook to d4
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The tactical motive
Save the piece: one of your pieces is attacked — find the best way to rescue it.
Difficulty 1881 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
Here the task is defensive: one of your pieces is under attack and must be rescued without losing more. Look for a move that saves it with tempo — a counter-check, an equal counter-attack or an interposition — rather than a passive retreat.
General method: before you move, list the forcing candidates — every check, every capture, every direct threat — and calculate those first. The solution to a tactic is almost always among them.
Position on the board
White: king b2, rook e3 a6, knight d4, pawn c2 c3 h4 g5.
Black: king f8, rook c4, bishop e6 g7, pawn e4 a5 g6 f7 h7.
8 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 38.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 1 points of material (17 against 16; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on b2, the black king on f8.
It is Black to move on move 38, with 27 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: c.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The Black king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
38... Rxd4 39. Ra8+ Ke7
Why it works
- Great move! rook to d4 keeps the pressure (+3.5).
- Well found: king to e7 (+3.6).
- You win a piece — the knight.
- If instead Ra8+, then Ke7 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 38… Rxd4 — rook to d4 (capture)
- 39. Ra8+ — rook to a8 with check
- Ke7 — king to e7
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
Endgame tactic
Tactics live in the endgame too — strike while material is scarce.
Tactics do not retire when the queens come off: forks, pins and double attacks live on in the endgame. With so little material left, every tactical loss is almost always decisive. The signs are the usual ones — undefended pieces, king and piece on one line, a pawn about to promote. Even in a "technical" ending, scan for a shot before every move, both yours and your opponent's.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Pack 014
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